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Cramming More Components Onto Integrated Circuits: The Experts Look Ahead
Cramming More Components Onto Integrated Circuits: The Experts Look Ahead
By Gordon E. Moore
Director, Research and Development Laboratories, Fairchild Semiconductor
division of Fairchild Camera and Instrument Corp.
The future of integrated electronics is the future of electron- machine instead of being concentrated in a central unit. In
ics itself. The advantages of integration will bring about a addition, the improved reliability made possible by integrated
proliferation of electronics, pushing this science into many circuits will allow the construction of larger processing units.
new areas. Machines similar to those in existence today will be built at
Integrated circuits will lead to such wonders as home lower costs and with faster turn-around.
computersor at least terminals connected to a central com- Present and future
puterautomatic controls for automobiles, and personal
By integrated electronics, I mean all the various tech-
portable communications equipment. The electronic wrist-
nologies which are referred to as microelectronics today as
watch needs only a display to be feasible today.
well as any additional ones that result in electronics func-
But the biggest potential lies in the production of large
tions supplied to the user as irreducible units. These tech-
systems. In telephone communications, integrated circuits
nologies were first investigated in the late 1950s. The ob-
in digital filters will separate channels on multiplex equip-
ject was to miniaturize electronics equipment to include in-
ment. Integrated circuits will also switch telephone circuits
creasingly complex electronic functions in limited space with
and perform data processing.
minimum weight. Several approaches evolved, including
Computers will be more powerful, and will be organized
microassembly techniques for individual components, thin-
in completely different ways. For example, memories built
film structures and semiconductor integrated circuits.
of integrated electronics may be distributed throughout the
Each approach evolved rapidly and converged so that
each borrowed techniques from another. Many researchers
The author
believe the way of the future to be a combination of the vari-
Dr. Gordon E. Moore is one of ous approaches.
the new breed of electronic The advocates of semiconductor integrated circuitry are
engineers, schooled in the
physical sciences rather than in already using the improved characteristics of thin-film resis-
electronics. He earned a B.S. tors by applying such films directly to an active semiconduc-
degree in chemistry from the tor substrate. Those advocating a technology based upon
University of California and a films are developing sophisticated techniques for the attach-
Ph.D. degree in physical
chemistry from the California ment of active semiconductor devices to the passive film ar-
Institute of Technology. He was rays.
one of the founders of Fairchild Both approaches have worked well and are being used
Semiconductor and has been in equipment today.
director of the research and
development laboratories since
1959.
104
sonable candidates presently in existence for the active ele-
ments of integrated circuits. Passive semiconductor elements
look attractive too, because of their potential for low cost 1965
103
and high reliability, but they can be used only if precision is
not a prime requisite.
Silicon is likely to remain the basic material, although
102
others will be of use in specific applications. For example, 1970
gallium arsenide will be important in integrated microwave
functions. But silicon will predominate at lower frequencies
10
because of the technology which has already evolved around
it and its oxide, and because it is an abundant and relatively
inexpensive starting material. 1
Costs and curves 1 10 102 103 104 105
Reduced cost is one of the big attractions of integrated Number of Components Per Integrated Circuit
electronics, and the cost advantage continues to increase as
the technology evolves toward the production of larger and
larger circuit functions on a single semiconductor substrate.
For simple circuits, the cost per component is nearly inversely
proportional to the number of components, the result of the
13
12
higher speed for the same power per unit area.
Per Integrated Function
11 Day of reckoning
10
9 Clearly, we will be able to build such component-
8 crammed equipment. Next, we ask under what circumstances
7
we should do it. The total cost of making a particular system
6
5 function must be minimized. To do so, we could amortize
4 the engineering over several identical items, or evolve flex-
3
ible techniques for the engineering of large functions so that
2
1 no disproportionate expense need be borne by a particular
array. Perhaps newly devised design automation procedures
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Moore’s Law
Gordon Moore: The original Moore’s Law came out of an article I published in 1965 this was the
early days of the integrated circuit, we were just learning to put a few components on a chip. I was
given the chore of predicting what would happen in silicon components in the next 10 years for the
35th anniversary edition of “Electronic Magazine”. So I looked at what we were doing in integrated
circuits at that time, and we made a few circuits and gotten up to 30 circuits on the most complex
chips that were out there in the laboratory, we were working on with about 60, and I looked and
said gee in fact from the days of the original planar transistor, which was 1959, we had about
doubled every year the amount of components we could put on a chip. So I took that first few
points, up to 60 components on a chip in 1965 and blindly extrapolated for about 10 years and
said okay, in 1975 we’ll have about 60 thousand components on a chip. Now what was I trying
to do was to get across the idea that this was the way electronics was going to become cheap.
It wasn’t true of the early integrated circuits, they cost more than the bits and pieces that you
could assemble cost, but from where I was in the laboratory, you could see the changes that
were coming, make the yields go up, and get the cost per transistors down dramatically. I had
no idea this was going to be an accurate prediction, but amazingly enough instead of ten doubling,
we got 9 over the 10 years, but still followed pretty well along the curve. And one of my friends,
Dr. Carver Mead, a Professor at Cal Tech, dubbed this Moore’s Law.
So the original one was doubling every year in complexity now in 1975, I had to go back and
revisit this... and I noticed we were losing one of the key factors that let us make this remarkable
rate of progress... and it was one that was contributing about half of the advances were making.
So then I changed it to looking forward, we’d only be doubling every couple of years, and that was
really the two predictions I made. Now the one that gets quoted is doubling every 18 months…
I think it was Dave House, who used to work here at Intel, did that, he decided that the complexity
was doubling every two years and the transistors were getting faster, that computer performance
was going to double every 18 months... but that’s what got on Intel’s Website... and everything
else. I never said 18 months that’s the way it often gets quoted.
Gordon Moore: Two years in this day in age, and we’re doing a little better than that.
Gordon Moore: Of course, that was my plan from the beginning, no you can never see that far
down the road in this sort of thing. When Intel was founded the entire semiconductor business
worldwide was about two billion dollars... now it’s kind of 200 billion dollars. The entire market has
grown about 100 fold in that time. There was no way we could predict very far down the road what
was going to happen. It was just a lucky guess, I guess on my part... lucky extrapolation.
Interviewer: What are your thoughts now, knowing Past and future
its significance?
Interviewer: Reflect on 36 years... Thoughts as look back
Gordon Moore: It’s important to certainly change. Initially, on entire career? Founding greatest companies in the world?
just an observation an attempt to predict this was a way to
cheap electronics... but the industry made it a self-fulfilling Gordon Moore: It sure is nice to be at the right place at
prophesy now, the industry road maps are based on that the right time. I was very fortunate to get into the semicon-
continued rate of improvement, various technology nodes ductor industry in its infancy. And I had an opportunity to grow
come along on a regular basis to keep us on that curve, so from the time where we couldn’t make a single silicon transis-
all the participants in the business recognize that if they don’t tor to the time where we put 1.7 billion of them on one chip!
move that fast they fall behind technology, so essentially from It’s been a phenomenal ride... if you measure the industry in
being just a measure of what has happened, it’s become a terms of the number of transistors it makes which I like to
driver of what is going to happen. Something I never would do occasionally, there’s no industry that I can identify that is
have imagined initially. remotely comparable in how it’s expanded over that period
of time. We’ve grown a lot in dollars but we’ve grown a heck
Interviewer: How long can it continue? of a lot more in our output.
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